Category: General

Most illnesses, though scary, have a specific set of treatments that go with the specific diagnosis. Diabetics can measure their blood sugar, and then, depending on the type of diabetes, they either take insulin or adjust their diet or exercise regimen to bring the blood sugar measurement into the proper range. Heart disease requires that the sufferer make dietary or lifestyle changes, and in more acute cases, surgery can restore relatively normal health. Many cancers now have very predictable treatments and success rates.

Not so with serious mental illness. Often, even coming up with the diagnosis is a difficult and lengthy procedure.

Think about it for a moment. Who you are and how you perceive the world is handled, if not totally, in large part by your brain. But suppose for a moment that the reality that is presented to you by your brain isn't the reality that is perceived by others. Your brain tells you one thing, but people tell you something completely different. ALL YOUR LIFE, you have trusted your brain and the reality it presents to you, but then, something goes wrong. For some reason, known or unknown, something goes out of balance, and your perception of reality becomes skewed. Why would you not believe your version of reality? Why shouldn't you believe what your brain has been telling you? What other measure of reality do you have?

Then, this skewed perception of reality works to destroy your life. It can affect work, school, financial matters, and sleep patterns. Most often, it strains, breaks, and even destroys interpersonal relationships, whether they be friendships, family relationships, or marriages.

It's hard to get help. Help comes most often in the form of medication and psychotherapy. But in order to get help in the first place, one must admit that one has a serious mental illness. One has to admit that their reality isn't THE reality. That would be scary to admit.

There's no perfect medication for any mental illness. All of them have side effects, some more severe than others. Think about it: Who wants to take a medication that can cause dry mouth, itchiness, diharrea, or "sexual side effects?" ESPECIALLY when the sufferer still denies that the mental illness even exists?

A medication that works for one person may or may not work for another person. Even when it does work, it might take weeks, or even MONTHS before the efficacy of the medication is known. And medicaiton for mental illnesses are often expensive.

In some cases, there are effects of the illness that the mentally ill person actually LIKE. So why take a medication that takes the good parts away?

It sucks, not just for the person suffering with a mental illness, but also for their family members and friends. It's hard to see someone you love in a complete funk brought on not by any actions of their own, but by an abnormal interaction of chemicals and processes in the brain. And worse, when they're in the "funk," they don't realize it, and there seems to be no way to reason with them, to help them see that what they're experiencing isn't normal and can be alleviated by the right kinds of treatment.

I have a lot to learn about mental illness and how to deal with it. I only hope that, by the time I have learned enough to be of assistance, the person I most want to help is still alive to receive the assistance.

Less than an hour after I passed that dreaded kidney stone, I got taht dreaded envelope in the mailbox. It was marked for official business only. The return address was an IRS service center.

When I opened it, my heart sank. "The income and payment information (e.g., wages, miscellaneous income, interest, income tax withheld, earned income credit, etc.) that we have on file does not match entries on your 2004 Form 1040. If this information is correct, you will owe $8620."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! I just paid for landscaping! I don't have another $8620 just lying around. To add insult to injury, more than $2000 of this is interest and penalties. Two words: OUCH!

After a few minutes of reminding myself to breathe in and out, I looked closer at the notice I received. The next section told me what steps I can take to help me understand this notice.

1. Review your 2004 tax return.
2. Compare your return to the information in the Explanation Section -- page 5.
3. Decide if the information in the Explanation Section is correct.
4. Check the answers to Frequently Asked Questions -- page 2.
5. Complete and return the Response Form in the enclosed envelope -- page 3.
6. Complete and return the Installment Agreement Request (enclosed) if you need to set up a a payment plan.
7. Review your rights in the Examination Process Booklet (Enclosed)

After looking at the information in the Explanation Section, I can see that the major discrepancy was in the "cost basis of stock sold." For two of my stock option plan transactions, they couldn't determine the cost basis, and therefore used the "zero cost basis." Basically, they assumed that the stock I sold cost me absolutely nothing, which absolutely isn't true. I had to not only pay for the stocks, but a portion of the proceeds from the stock sale were reported on my W-2 as ordinary income, which adds to the cost basis of the stock transaction.

I have documentation to back this up, so it's all going to work out okay in the end. Sure, I had a near heart attack for a while, but after looking through records and thinking about this rationally, I'll be able to show why the figures that I reported are indeed correct.

*whew*

Yesterday morning, I woke up with severe discomfort in my left side. I recognized the discomfort and knew the pain that it was going to turn into. I looked at the clock and saw that it was 4:44 am. How fitting. This would be my fourth kidney stone.

I knew exactly what to do. I needed to get myself to the Emergency Room as soon as possible. Fortunately, I live only a couple of minutes away from a hospital, so I was able to drive myself there. The pain was getting worse.

I'm pretty sure that Emergency Room workers like it when people like me come in. It's nice for them to have someone come in already self-diagnosed and 100% sure of what is wrong with them. I told them that I was having my fourth kidney stone. They immediately took me back into a treatment room and started an IV. They, like me, knew the agony that would soon follow and were ready to give me the medication I would need.

I gave them the sample they needed to test for the presence of blood and confirm my self-diagnosis and then they gave me an intravenous drug coctail that would make my life easier for the next while as well as a prescription for something that would make my life bearable until the kidney stone passed.

My other three stones passed within a few hours of the first pain. This one is taking longer than the others. No, I'm not happy about that. I'm especially not happy because I'm singing at a funeral today. If I'm in enough pain that it's hard to breathe normally, it's going to be EXTREMELY hard to sing. I'll just have to make sure and time my next dose of those wonderful painkillers so that the hour of the funeral will be as comfortable as possible.

I guess there IS a silver lining to this dark cloud: It could have happened last week when I was at scout camp or the week before when I was in Phoenix. In either case, it would have taken me a LOT longer to get to a hospital and get some help.

But, to use a bad pun, this too shall pass.

***UPDATE***
It passed around 4:30 this afternoon, making 36 hours of somewhat excruciating pain. But everything feels better now. *WHEW!*

Hey you! Yeah, I'm talking to you! Yes, you, the lady in the teeny-weeny black bikini by the side of the pool!

It's NOT WORKING.

See that guy to your left? No, not him, the other guy. Yeah, that's right...the one wearing a speedo. You're right. He shouldn't be wearing a speedo. Well, I'm sorry to break this to you, but he's you, just in the male variety.

No, I'm not saying you're fat. I'm just saying that you're not quite what you either once were, or once THOUGHT you were when you bought that piece of dental floss disguised as designer swimwear. Sure, it might look good on SOMEONE. That someone would have a physique closer to Twiggy's than to yours.

I'm sorry. It's just NOT WORKING.

So wrap that towel around yourself, because...

Ewwww.

Air travel... What a strange, strange thing.

People are herded onto metal cylinders that hurtle through the atmosphere at speeds of several hundreds of miles per hour. The quarters are cramped and uncomfortable. There is little or no control over any part of the process. We are scrutinized, sometimes poked and prodded, and subjected to all sorts of screenings, all so that we can arrive at distant destinations in some semblance of a reasonable amount of time.

When things go well, it's a tolerable experience. When they don't, it can be miserable.

Here are some more of my experiences in the wonderful world of commercial air travel.

For my fifteenth wedding anniversary, I took my wife to La Caille, a snooty French restaurant at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. I had heard of La Caille before. It certainly has a very high reputation. It's likely the most expensive restaurant in the greater Salt Lake area. So when I was given $200 in gift certificates to La Caille, I was actually pretty excited to finally be able to experience the snooty Frenchness without having to foot the bill.

La Caille is in a VERY beautiful place. It's in a large, gated area, and as we drove up the brick-cobbled lane to the restaurant, we enjoyed the scenery. As we came closer to the restaurant, we noticed (much to my wife's joy) that the lawn was littered with BUNNIES. Real, live bunnies were running all over the place! And peacocks were strutting around too.

After relinquishing my vehicle to the valet, we walked in the front doors and were greeted by a tart with cleavage. As a matter of fact, before the night was over, we re-named the restaurant "Tarts With Cleavage."

"Welcome to Tarts With Cleavage. Are you ready to be seated or would you like to ogle for a while longer?"

Yes, all of the waitresses were wearing French tart costumes, and almost without exception, they had discovered the push-up bra. Now, I'm not saying that I'm not interested in cleavage. It's just that there's just one particular person's cleavage I'm interested in. That's one of the reasons that we were celebrating our fifteenth wedding anniversary - because I take the "cleave unto" thing literally. And that means generally NOT taking notice of other womens' cleavage.

Oh yeah, and our server was oldish, and honestly... Old cleavage? *shudder*

The menu that they brought out after we were seated had only appetizers. Our server gave us a somewhat disappointed look when we didn't want to see the wine list. I could almost SEE the "Great. Smaller tip." look on her face. We both ordered french onion soup. Apparently, the reward for ordering and consuming an appetizer is the actual dinner menu. "Well. Now that we see that you actually CAN eat, here's something you can REALLY sink your teeth into."

The prices on the menu were all spelled out. For example, instead of $56, it was printed as FIFTY-SIX. I think that's done to minimize the sticker shock. You see, it takes a while for one's brain to translate the words "FIFTY-SIX" into dollars, and even then, the brain disbelieves that a couple dollars' worth of ingreedients could be magically transformed into something that costs that much, so, in denial, the brain decides that it's item number FIFTY-SIX on the menu, or something like that. There was one exception. The Australian Rock Lobster didn't have a price. It simply said "FINANCING AVAILABLE."

Honestly, I've had better food in restaurants that are a lot less pricey. Maybe they feel that a glass or two of wine will make the food taste better. Maybe they feel that what they lack in taste, they make up in tart cleavage. Since I'm not interested enough in either, I was a little disappointed with the food.

Dessert, however, is quite a spectacle, even when served by one of the cleavage-less peasant boys that were occaisionally seen waiting tables. A lot of the desserts were accompanied by fire and the servers expertly poured flaming concoctions from gravy boats into large goblets. Both the chocolate cake and the creme brulee that we ate were excellent, and were, by far, the best part of the meal. All's well that ends well, right?

Well... almost.

For two appetizers, a couple of salads, a piece of prime rib, a couple of chicken breasts, and the aforementioned desserts, we were handed a bill that came to ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-SEVEN. HA! I kid! It wasn't actually spelled out like that on the bill. They used real numbers. By that time, you've already eaten everything you're going to eat, and spoiling your appetite with real numbers won't deprive the restaurant of any more money.

Our server DID do one more (rather common) trick to try to get a bigger tip from me. A 20% tip could come to about THIRTY-ONE on this particular bill. But when I received my change of just under FORTY-THREE, they gave me two twenty-dollar bills and two one-dollar bills. If I didn't have any cash in my wallet, I would have to either ask the server to break one of the twenties, or I would have to just leave FORTY on the table. Most often, people don't want to bother (especially when paying with gift certificates), and they just leave the larger tip.

So that was my experience at Tarts With Cleavage... I mean, La Caille. My overall rating would be overpriced, overrated, and too pushed-up, if you get my meaning. But having experienced it all on someone else's nickle, I can't really complain.

Getting to Charlotte was a bit of an adventure in itself.

On Friday morning, I went to an 8am conference call with a client that was having problems with the software I develop. An hour later, I had booked tickets to Charlotte, NC. I was SUPPOSED TO leave at 3:30 that same afternoon.

I hurried home, packed my bags, returned to work, finished up a couple of things necessary for the trip, and then headed up to the airport. I left a couple of minutes later than I should have and traffic was a little worse than I had expected, and I ended up getting to the airport a little later than I thought I should have.

Unfortunately, I was later than the desk agent thought I should have been there. How much later? ONE MINUTE. The desk agent wouldn't check me in. I tried to check in at the kiosk. By that time, my flight was leaving in 29 minutes. The kiosk won't check you in less than 30 minutes before the flight. Crap.

I called the corporate travel service back and since the flight hadn't left yet and since the ticket had been purchased full-price, they just cancelled the ticket. HA! That'll teach them to not let me on the flight. I was re-booked for a flight the following morning at 6 am.

I am absolutely and totally NOT a morning person, but I dragged my sorry butt out of bed at 3:20 in the morning. I've seen 3:20 am way more often from the going-to-sleep side, not the getting-up-early side. It was NOT fun. No. But I wasn't going to miss my flight by one stoopid minute again.

I parked my car in long-term parking and caught a shuttle bus to the terminal, just in time to see the last of the people getting off of not one, but TWO coach buses. They all got in line at the same place where I had been denied check-in the day before. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Fortunately, I remembered the self-checkin kiosk, and walked right past the line of several dozen people, checked in, and walked over to get through security.

The friendly old gentleman checked my boarding pass, and highlighted four letters at the bottom: "SSSS" In case you're wondering, it means that you're So, So, SO Screwed! Officially, it means something like "Secondary Screening Selection" (with one more 'S'). I got the full treatment, which is basically everything but a body cavity search. The first step was to remove my belt, shoes, watch, and everything metal and put them in a bin along with my jacket. Then my laptop came out of its bag and was put through the x-ray machine. Then I was asked to step into a machine that looked like a metal detector that puffed air all over me and then analyzed the air for traces of explosives. After what seemed like an eternity, the doors on the front of the puffer machine opened and I was escorted to the area where I watched TSA agents go through all of my belongings. They opened every bag, every pocket, every zipper, every case. They swabbed everything electronic item (Quite a lot of them. I'm a GEEK!) with the cloth swabs that they put in the sniffer machine that would sniff for traces of explosives. They swabbed the inside of pockets, all the zipper pulls, the back and insides of my carry-on and my laptop bag. They were VERY thorough.

And FINALLY I was on my way.

The rest of the trip to Charlotte was relatively uneventful. There WAS the free upgrade from Minneapolis St. Paul to Las Vegas that they were giving away at the next gate, but that's a story for another entry.

Kind of.

Work is still insane and will be for a while.

But at least I'm sleeping in my own bed again.

And I REALLY WILL write more later...

A quick hello from Charlotte, NC.  I've been here for the better part of a week and I get to fly home tomorrow.

Suffice it to say that there was an emergency at work and it was better to be onsite with the client.

More later...

Yesterday, when I arrived home from work, I got out of my car and heard a strange hissing noise coming from behind the garbage cans, or so I thought. It was actually noise reflected from the back tire of my car.

I wasn't in the mood to do anything about it right then. The tire was too flat to drive on, so I couldn't take it to get it repaired without changing the tire and putting on the donut spare, so I just decided to wait until morning.

This morning, I put on the spare and took it to Big O Tires, where I had purchased the tires. Because I bought Big O brand tires, flat fixes are free!

It seemed to take longer than usual for a simple flat tire fix. It wasn't a simple flat tire fix. Whatever it was, it punctured the sidewall and the tire was not fixable. Fortunately, Big O also warrants their tires against such damage. They had already replaced the tire and all I had to do was sign the paperwork for the warranty replacement and I was on my way.

Needless to say, I highly recommend Big O Tires for all of your tire needs.